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5 Great Ways to Increase Employee Productivity

By Ben Bartlingon
Apr 25, 2016

Running a business can be a challenge, particularly if you have a staff of employees.

It’s hard to entrust your work over to someone else, but with the right attitude and steps, you can ensure that your employees do the work just as well as you would yourself.

Employee productivity can be something that makes or breaks your business. But it's a challenge to get your employees to be as passionate as you. And in other cases, it's the systems at your business that make it difficult for your employees to be productive.

Want to know how to have the most productive employees possible?

Check out these 5 great ways below.

1. Make fun mandatory

It might sound counterintuitive to make fun a mandatory event, but if you want to maximize the productivity of your employees, it helps to break up their workdays with non-work activities.

Hold regular lunches for employees where they have time to socialize during the days, or schedule parties or activities for colleagues to spend time together without doing work. Taking a break from work gives employees a chance to recharge so that they are reenergized when it’s time to start working again. Organized activities also allow for employees to bond, creating a more cohesive work environment.

2. Diversify work areas

Most likely, your employees will have to engage in different types of work throughout their shifts – whether it be interacting with customers, planning for upcoming work, or evaluating work that’s already been done.

To help increase employee productivity, give them multiple spaces to spend time and do work. Create a break room that is separate from work space, or create a work space where quiet, solitary work can happen away from collaborative work. Creating different spaces for different types of work allows for the best performance, since employees won’t have to spend time creating an appropriate space for themselves.

3. Encourage collaboration

It’s a proven fact that people work better when they’re working around other people who are working hard. Encourage your employees to work together, communicate, and help each other out. They will help promote good work habits in one another and naturally boost each other’s productivity.

4. Facilitate training and improvement

If you want your employees to work harder and do better at their jobs, providing them with the proper training is key.

Not only should you teach them necessary skills from the very start, you should also provide them with training as they continue to work for you; hold in-house training sessions and send them to outside learning events. Allowing them to learn and improve ensures that they do their best work in the workplace.

5. Provide high-quality supplies and support

In order to do the best work, employees need the best possible equipment and supplies; having to deal with malfunctioning equipment takes up time and energy that can be devoted to work. Maintain your workplace and the things in it properly, and employees will have the adequate resources to do their best work possible.